69: Chapter 69 Who?

"What are you doing?" Wang Qiao finally finished groaning and dragged his heavy body toward Lin Ning.

Lin Ning quickly extended his leg to hold him back, saying with disgust, "Go wash up, you're stinking to death!"

"Oh." Wang Qiao looked down and sniffed himself, then scratched his head. "Get me a towel and some clothes."

"I really owe you!" Lin Ning rolled his eyes as he stood up to find the items.

New underwear and a towel, and he even dug out a set of his own clothes and tossed them onto the washing machine outside the bathroom door.

After coming out and tossing breakfast into the microwave to heat up, he stood to the side staring blankly at his phone.

Finding someone with only a name is usually incredibly difficult, yet he had succeeded in just a few hours. Did this mean luck was on his side today?

Then Sofiani...

This thought kept tempting him.

Should he take a gamble?

He opened his phone, found a pay-per-use mini-program, and registered to pay the fee.

After typing and deleting the license plate number two or three times, Lin Ning finally clicked on the license plate verification.

This mini-program operated in a legal gray area, but Lin Ning used it anyway.

Why should he be a high-moral saint with his hands tied while others were out there breaking laws and causing destruction?

Anyway, he wasn't a police officer or any other public official.

It probably wasn't a very powerful server; the loading icon spun for a long time before the search finally completed.

He frowned as he looked at the refreshed page.

The car was registered under a foreign company called Collamela International Co., Ltd.; it wasn't a private vehicle.

This meant he would still have to stake out and tail them at the company building.

He didn't know how much time and energy it would take to find Sofiani herself.

Why couldn't bad people in reality be a bit stupider and simpler, like in movies and TV shows?!

He really wanted to ask Chen Zhi if he could grant him some sort of database access.

Wang Qiao walked out drying his hair. "You're up early. What are you doing?"

Lin Ning waved his hand irritably. "There's food in the microwave. Eat and then get out!"

"Oh, and," he pulled all the studio documents out of a drawer and tossed them to Wang Qiao, "the registered capital is only a hundred thousand. I'll transfer another nine hundred thousand to the account later to round it up. You handle the rest."

"..."

"You're really dumping everything on me?" Wang Qiao flipped through the documents. "The office location is virtual? We need to change that! Also, is this an increase in capital or a shareholder loan? The finances need to be in place first; part-timers won't do. After all, it's an investment company..."

Lin Ning pinched his blabbering mouth shut. "Handle it yourself, I'm not getting involved! Change the shareholders, add your name, and take a 30% stake. Now, eat and get out!"

"30%? Are you crazy?" Wang Qiao broke free and cried out in shock.

That was too much.

"Alright, your share will be diluted when I inject more capital later. Besides, you're doing all the work. The only possible revenue in the early stages is the financial investment from Brother Tao's side, which is your resource and connection. Let's leave it at that, stop dawdling!"

He forcefully shut down Wang Qiao's nagging, ending the conversation there.

Even close friends should keep clear accounts, but he wasn't the type to mistreat his brother.

While Wang Qiao ate his brunch, Lin Ning sat back down at the computer.

He typed [Collamela International Co., Ltd.] directly into the search bar to look up the company's information.

It was an art-related business that handled exhibitions, avant-garde art shows, and auctioned works by its artists. He checked all the photos on the official website's homepage, but they were all of artworks and artists; the woman wasn't there.

He then searched various open-source websites for related keywords and found many photos of events and exhibitions, but again, they were mostly of paintings and artists.

Lin Ning scratched his head. "At least post some group photos so I can confirm if Sofiani is actually one of yours."

Wang Qiao finished eating and walked over. Seeing Lin Ning browsing pictures on Little Red Book, he laughed in surprise. "You're actually looking at 'Little Red Book'? What, are you planning to join them, 'sister'?"

"Screw off!" Lin Ning's mouth twitched in annoyance.

"I'm trying to cross-reference and see if I can find a photo of that foreign woman I told you about last night to confirm her identity."

Hearing this, Wang Qiao asked curiously, "Did you find anything? And didn't you say that General Manager Zheng was also suspicious?"

Lin Ning thought for a moment. Finding Sofiani's photo wasn't urgent, but he could tell Old Wang about 'General Manager Zheng.'

He closed the page and opened a folder he had saved.

"His real name is Duan Pingheng, not some General Manager Zheng from a Malaysian private equity firm. Do you get what I'm saying? Look at this."

"For real?" Wang Qiao leaned over the table to look. "Holy shit! Holy shit!"

"You actually found evidence—no, you found his real identity?!" After confirming it in disbelief, Wang Qiao slapped Lin Ning hard on the shoulder.

"What do you think he's up to? Fraud?"

"What else? Anyway, now you know. You're in touch with Brother Tao a lot, so try to subtly find out what's going on with that investment project. If he's about to give money to Duan, stop him. But don't expose the specifics yet; I still need to figure out how to report him."

Wang Qiao nodded like a chicken pecking at grain, his face even flushing with excitement—this was interesting, this was fun!

Lin Ning threw cold water on him. "Do you know what it means to be discreet? Look at you, do you have Parkinson's or something?"

After finally getting rid of the excited Wang Qiao, Lin Ning didn't continue looking at photos on the computer.

He had a hunch that this foreign woman wouldn't easily leave any images or photos online.

Since they were all in Yanjing and he knew the company existed, they might as well play it out in person offline. That was the battlefield he was familiar with.

He tidied up, put his battle gear back on, and headed straight for Collamela International Co., Ltd.—hoping that the goddess of luck would continue to look after him today.

At noon, Lin Ning leaned against his electric scooter, slowly munching on a jianbing guozi.

His eyes periodically scanned the entrance and exit of the underground garage and the road in front of the building.

After finishing lunch, Lin Ning hesitated. He couldn't stay in the same spot forever; it didn't fit his delivery guy persona.

But what if he missed them during the brief moment he was gone?

Suddenly, a strange feeling, an inexplicable perception, surfaced in his mind.

What was that?

It wasn't danger, and the perception was intermittent.

Lin Ning felt it for a moment, and his body suddenly tensed up. He knew what it was—

He was being watched—no, scanned! The gaze didn't linger, but it swept over him from time to time.

Who???"